


Sound Judgement

by rarmaster



Category: Tales of Symphonia
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, the OVA makes me wanna die
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-07
Updated: 2018-07-07
Packaged: 2019-06-06 23:23:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,661
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15205736
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rarmaster/pseuds/rarmaster
Summary: "The Mithos we knew is long dead!"Kratos faces Yuan, at the Tower of Salvation.





	Sound Judgement

**Author's Note:**

> this is based heavily on the scene from the OVA!! Which, by the way, you can watch the entire OVA on youtube [here!](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLtmrWeXrMWKOeMJq-A9v_TKMj_OKD42xR)

The Chosen safely inside the Tower, Kratos stood guard outside of it. Surely his companions would want to interfere—especially if they knew the truth about the sacrifice Colette was about to make—and he wasn’t exactly looking forward to that, but… he had a job to do. A role to play. A role that included preventing the swarm of Renegades on their dragons from getting any closer.

Kratos raised his sword before him, tapping into the reservoirs of his power. He spoke the words of a familiar incantation (a prayer, if only he believed in the existence of a god), and breathed in the energy growing around him. Just a little more…

“Judgement!” he called.

Incantation finished, the energy released in a terrible rain of holy light. Dragons and riders alike turned to ash. Kratos’ mouth curled. It was unfortunate, to have slaughtered so many of Yuan’s troops, but surely they and Yuan had both known the cost before coming here. He just hoped Yuan was on one of the few surviving dragons. They were descending on him now, so he was about to find out.

“ _Kratos_?!”

Lloyd’s voice.

Kratos’ heart stopped dead.

He hastily turned his back on the dragons as they landed, trying to control his face and the roiling emotion in his chest.

“What are you doing with the likes of _them_?!” he demanded before he could control his mouth. His tone was sharper than it should have been, fueled by anger and the dawning realization that if his magic had fallen just a _little_ differently Lloyd would not be standing here right now. Kratos wanted to vomit. He tried to push the feeling down.

Genis hastily began explaining that the Renegades weren’t Desians—like Kratos wasn’t aware, like that was actually the problem here—but Kratos barely heard him. He carefully controlled his breathing, scrambling for some semblance of composure.

It was fine. Lloyd was alive. It was fine.

Still, he did not turn back around. He could not.

“Forget about that!” Lloyd shouted over Genis’ explanation. “Kratos, we’ve decided to save Colette. Please, lend us a hand! You of all people should understand.”

Kratos didn’t answer. He didn’t know how to. Though he’d had nights, months, to think about what he’d tell Lloyd in this moment, he’d put it off again and again because he didn’t want to think about this happening. His heart pounded against his ribcage. He’d almost killed his son. And now he had to break his son’s heart. How could he even?

Maybe he deserved this.

Yuan laughed.

“Seems you are quite the trickster, eh, Kratos?” Yuan said, filling the silence, explaining for Kratos when Kratos couldn’t find the words to, just like he always had. Kratos was grateful, though he doubted he could count on Yuan explaining any more than that.

He thought he heard Raine ask if he and Yuan knew each other (ha,) but her words were like static. Everything was like static. He didn’t even realize he was speaking until he heard Lloyd gasp.

“The Chosen… To provide the Chosen’s body as a vessel for Martel… that is the purpose of Cruxis.”

Kratos felt like he was miles away. By all rights he should have heard Lloyd approach him, but he didn’t realize it until he’d been touched and the power exploded from his back and he _heard_ Lloyd hit the ground behind him. His heart seized. All he was ever going to do was hurt Lloyd, wasn’t he? Would he have to draw his sword against Lloyd? _Could_ he?

He’d have to. If Mithos thought him disloyal, then—

“Kratos—!?” Lloyd’s voice, surprised, broken.

Kratos felt empty. He could see his wings at the edges of his vision. When had pulled those out? No matter, they told his secret better than his words ever could.

“An angel…?” Genis asks.

“An angel sent down to ensure the Chosen succeeded on her quest,” Kratos finished in affirmation. It was much easier to speak when the words were first provided to him, words to organize his thoughts, words to spin his explanation out of.

“You’ve deceived us, haven’t you?” Raine’s voice. The fact that Lloyd hadn’t said anything else hurt more than Kratos wanted it to; hurt more, he thought, than if Lloyd had yelled at him. Anger would have been much easier to take than this quiet heartbreak.

But then, he didn’t deserve anything easy, did he?

Maybe the pain of slowly crushing his son’s heart under his heel was the least he deserved.

“Kratos…” Lloyd said, and oh, oh yes. Kratos absolutely deserved the way Lloyd’s voice cracked over his name in disbelief, and how that felt like a knife in his chest. He deserved that, and so much worse. “I thought you told me that- that I should be strong enough to protect Colette. So _why_ —!?”

Kratos didn’t have an answer.

He wished it didn’t have to be this way.

He’d meant many of the things he’d told Lloyd, even the things he’d said just hours ago. But Kratos-who-was-Lloyd’s-friend, Kratos-who-was-Lloyd’s-father—that Kratos couldn’t coexist with Kratos-the-angel-who-was-Mithos’-loyal-servant. He had to fill this role, he had to play this part, or else—

“Don’t bother,” Yuan said, and there was bitterness in his laugh. “Kratos’ heart is long dead.”

(Oh, how Kratos wished that were true.)

He still felt miles away, but the sharp sound of a sword being drawn snapped his attention back into his body. He drew his own sword and turned to block the blow—Yuan’s sword. Cold relief washed over him. He had no idea what he would have done, had it been Lloyd’s.

Yuan pulled his sword back just enough to lunge again. Kratos deflected with ease. Fighting was automatic, and fighting Yuan even more so. 4000 years and a lot of sparring made it as easy to read Yuan’s movements as it was to breathe. Did Yuan really think he was going to win?

“What are you doing?!” Yuan shouted, making Kratos hesitate. When Yuan pulled back, Kratos let him, even though his guard was down. (He could kill Yuan just as easy as he could kill Lloyd, though.) “Go!” Yuan called to Lloyd and his friends. “Stop the Chosen!”

“R- Right!” Lloyd called back in hasty reply, and the three of them ran up to the Tower of Salvation.

Kratos watched them go. Should he stop them? He couldn’t say he wanted to. Fighting Yuan was a legitimate excuse for letting Lloyd go, and he was grateful to Yuan for giving him that, even if Yuan hadn’t meant to. Because, if Lloyd actually managed to stop Colette’s transformation? Well… Kratos had done what he could, hadn’t he? Yuan had just been in the way.

That would have to be enough for Mithos.

“Kratos! Look at me!” Yuan snapped.

Kratos’ eyes slid back to him.

Yuan tossed his sword aside and summoned Swallow, his double-edged blade. So he planned to fight seriously, then. Not that it made much a difference. Kratos knew this blade perhaps twice as well as any other, in Yuan’s hands, so this was just as easy. A shield to block a burst of lightning, a sword aimed at Yuan’s gut that Yuan blocked at only the last second. He pushed Kratos back.

“I’d hoped meeting your son again might have rekindled _some_ life in your heart!” Yuan spat, spinning Swallow in an arc.

“Unfortunately,” Kratos replied, a weight in his chest. His arms hurt with the strain of catching Yuan’s blow and pushing it to the side. “Just enough to make sure I couldn’t go anywhere.”

Yuan’s eyes flashed. Lightning burned at his fingertips. “Mithos keeps you on a tight leash, huh?”

“Don’t talk about him like that,” Kratos argued, quiet, cold. He countered this blast of lightning with one of his own. They collided in a burst of dissipating sparks.

“The Mithos we knew is long dead, Kratos!” Yuan’s voice—predictably—shook with his fury, with his pain. Were those tears in his eyes?

The weight in Kratos’ chest was twice, three times as heavy, more than that, as if someone had dropped Derris-Kharlan itself on his shoulders. “I know,” he answered. “And still, I cannot abandon him.”

“Not even for your son’s sake!?”

Yuan looked angry enough to rip Kratos open, if he could only get through Kratos’ defenses. He made a good effort, but Kratos knew how he fought too well.

“I cannot lose Lloyd again,” Kratos said, resolute. Yuan’s swing was sloppy, unbalanced. It was easy to deflect, sidestep, then spin and deliver a swift kick to Yuan’s stomach.

Yuan staggered back, coughing on his disrupted airflow. He wiped at his chin, eyes burning. “You already lost him when you betrayed him!”

Kratos turned away. The words hurt more than any of Yuan’s physical blows had.

“It’s better that he’s alive,” he told Yuan, told himself, kept telling himself.

“Alive and hates you!?” Yuan demanded, too angry to attack again.

Kratos shrugged, eyes fixed on the ground. “He hates me, not his father, at least,” he whispered.

“Hmph.” Yuan’s laugh was not entirely amused, but neither was it entirely bitter. “Selfish old man,” he called, with all the fondness of a brother.

“It’s the only way I know how to live anymore,” Kratos admitted. He let out a long breath, and raised his blade again. At least Mithos did not expect him to kill Yuan. At least he could trust Yuan enough to hold his own against the full of Kratos’ strength. He gathered his mana—

There was an explosion from above, loud and bright.

Kratos turned, the breath fleeing his lungs. There was smoke, and fire, halfway up the Tower of Salvation.

“Lloyd,” he breathed.

Yuan smacked him in the side and knocked him to the ground. Kratos made to get up, but Swallow’s weight smashed into his chest.

“Sorry,” Yuan said, and then lightning filled Kratos’ veins, burning and sharp. His vision went black.


End file.
